


How It Starts, Before It Ends

by lizznotliz



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27611756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizznotliz/pseuds/lizznotliz
Summary: Sofia is one year out of cosmetology school when Dale Lee walks into the salon.
Relationships: Sofia Bicicleta/Dale Lee
Comments: 22
Kudos: 84





	How It Starts, Before It Ends

When Sofia is six years old, her second oldest cousin, Carla, gets engaged to an Irish boy named Seamus. Sofia's never seen hair that red outside of a cartoon before, and she's never seen two people look quite as in love as Carla and Seamus. Sofia is lucky because she's the only girl in the family the right age, so she doesn't have to fight anybody in the yard to be the flower girl, and she spends the day of the wedding twirling around in the little side room of the church, watching her dress flare out at the knees. She’s too little to notice the way the older women in the room whisper and roll their eyes, or hear the things the men of the family say about Carla marrying outside of the neighborhood, or clock the way some of her older cousins lay bets on how many of their kids won't look Italian at all.

What Sofia remembers most - what comes back to her in vivid detail decades later when Dale gets down on one knee - is the defiant, joyous way Carla stood at the front of the church and the too-tight way she held Seamus' hand during their vows.

Sofia is one year out of cosmetology school when Dale Lee walks into the salon.

Everything sort of stops for a moment, the whole salon going still and silent, and when Sofie tells the story later she winks and says it's because the whole damn world stopped the moment she and Dale looked at each other and fell in love. In actuality, it was just because men were a rare sight in the salon, especially a man that wasn't related to a hairdresser or client. No one is quite sure what to do with this Asian beefcake, polishing his glasses on the tail of his buttondown, but if Lisa and Joy aren't going to handle this then, fine, Sofia will.

"You lost?"

Dale blinks, still blind, then puts his glasses back on and just full on stares at Sofia for a moment. Sofia's an Italian broad from Staten Island, she's no stranger to getting stared at, and she's pretty comfortable with telling men in increasingly profane ways what they should be doing instead of staring at her. She doesn't say anything to this guy, though. Something about him... he's fine. Just lost.

"Oh, no, not lost. I was looking to get a haircut?" He runs a hand through his hair with a sheepish grin, leaving it rakish and tousled and if Sofia had a little more seniority at the salon she would drag him into a closet.

"We don't usually do men's cuts here," she says. Dale looks around a little, seemingly noticing for the first time that he's the only male in the building. He takes a step back, ready to retreat, but Sofia holds up her scissors. "But, hey, if you're just lookin' for a trim, I can take care a ya."

Dale grins, and Sofia wonders if there's a lock on the bathroom door. "That would be amazing, thank you so much." He sits down in her chair and takes off his glasses again, folding them carefully and sliding them into his shirt pocket. Lisa and Joy are making eyes at her and Sofia studiously ignores them as she whips the cape around his neck and starts cutting his hair.

Dale's chatty. The salon, usually full of Staten Island women, never wants for conversation, but Dale can keep up with the best of them. By the end of his trim, Sofia's learned his name (Dale Lee), where he works (Moss & Archer Accounting), the last time he got a haircut (two months ago; right before tax season really kicked into high gear), and why he's on the island.

"How could you tell?" He asks, a little mystified, when she correctly guessed that he didn't live on Staten Island. He tries to turn around to look at her over his shoulder and she grabs his head, palms flat against his ears, and holds him steady. He flashes her another sheepish grin in the mirror and she winks back at him.

"A girl knows. So, spill."

"Oh, I just came by to get lunch with one of my friends from the office. Figured I'd try to get a haircut on the way home."

"You... you have a friend who lives on Staten Island and came to see them?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Sofia doesn't tell him that nobody ever comes to visit friends on Staten Island, doesn't tell him that he's a unicorn, a hero, a saint, the best friend that person could ask for. Instead what she says is: "Well, since you have no problem hopping on the ferry, how about you come back next weekend and buy me dinner?"

Dale agrees, tips her 50%, and shows up at the shop a week later, right as her shift is ending, with a bouquet of red roses.

Dale grew up in the Midwest, among cornfields and sprawling suburban neighborhoods, and only moved to the city within the last year when he got the job at Moss & Archer. He's not a hayseed hick who is still flummoxed by the subway or anything, he's definitely a New Yorker now, but he still harbors a tourist's love for the monuments and museums and spots of interest.

Their dates are treasure hunts to find little known locations that are answers to trivia questions, and he treats the history of Staten Island, as provided by Sofia, as sacred knowledge. He takes her to Chinatown and orders food for her. She takes him to the church where Carla and Seamus got married and watches the wonder on his face as he stares up at the intricate stained glass windows. He keeps a stick of her favorite gum in his wallet at all times, offers his jacket before she even realizes she’s cold, and seems entirely unable to resist kissing her in the middle of her forehead when she says something he thinks is cute. He is polite and brilliant and ripped as fuck and Sofia utterly adores him. She always knew her type was tall, dark, and handsome, but she never expected tall, dark, and handsome would also be someone as sweet as Dale Lee.

The first time he comes over to her parents' house for dinner, he tears up when he spots some deer in the backyard and Sofia thinks _I'm going to marry that man_ for the first time, but definitely not the last.

Sofia’s family is, to be blunt, pretty shit at being supportive of her relationship. Mario looks genuinely surprised every time she brings Dale to Sunday night family dinners, like he can’t believe they’re still dating. Her mother peppers every single conversation with the names and occupations of her friends’ single sons. Her father rarely says anything at all, just raises a judgemental eyebrow in Dale’s direction when they come by the house. Dale takes it all with a grace that Sofia simultaneously admires and abhors; he’s such a good man, in ways that still manage to surprise her day after day, but she hates how he won’t stand up for himself. He shouldn’t let folks walk all over him like this, not even her own family.

But it’s not in Dale’s nature to fight, she thinks, so she’ll fight for him.

Sometimes the fight looks like holding his hand all the way through dinner; other times it’s yelling at Mario for a solid twenty minutes over something vaguely racist he muttered when Dale went to the bathroom. No matter what, when they leave her parents’ house and start to walk back to her apartment, Dale hauls her into the shadows and kisses her until her knees are weak.

“My hero,” he whispers into her hair, and she thinks he really, truly means it.

Dale loves going to the Snug Harbor Botanical Gardens and picking out a walking trail for them on sunny Saturday afternoons. The Chinese Scholar Garden is his favorite, with the traditional architecture and beautiful mosaics and the litany of “fun facts” he’s all too happy to recite every time they walk through. Still, he likes to mix it up, so she doesn’t really think anything of it when he suggests the Perennial Garden one weekend. The flowers are blooming in bold, bright colors and the trees are green and lush, and tax season is over so Dale actually has the time for them to meander slowly through the garden. He likes to read all the little placards that give the Latin names of the plants and Sofia likes to take pictures for her phone background, both of the flowers and Dale’s ass as he leans over to read the placards.

She’s scrolling through the last dozen photos on her phone when Dale slides the ring box out of the pocket of his chinos. She doesn’t notice the way he fidgets with it for a moment, eyes cutting back and forth between the velvet box and the part in her hair as she deletes a blurry photo of a lily. She completely misses the utterly besotted look on his face, the way he nods a little and sets his jaw, the moment when he decides yes, this is the time and gets down on one knee.

“Sof? Sweetheart?”

And Dale is kneeling on the walking path, getting dirt stains on his pants, and there are tears in his eyes and a smile she’s never seen before splitting his face, and the ring is polished silver and the diamond sparkles in the bright noon sun, and Sofia thinks about being a little girl and seeing that defiant, life-altering love for the first time at Carla’s wedding and wondering when she would find it for herself. And it’s here. _He’s_ here. Behind Clark Kent glasses and a short-sleeved white buttondown.

Dale doesn’t even get a chance to ask the question. Sofia just shouts “Oh my gawd, _yes_!” and tackles him. She loses her phone in the bushes. She can’t even take a picture to commemorate the happiest moment of her life.

Sofia knew she loved Dale when she realized that she found his thrifty accountant tendencies to be cute, rather than annoying. He moves to Staten Island so they can buy a house because the mortgage rates are so much better than anything they could hope to find across the river; he pushes for a Friday wedding so they can save money on the venue and start their married life with a long weekend. He refuses to get a haircut from anyone other than Sofia, though he is just as adamant about making an appointment and going to the salon, even after she offers to give him a trim over the bathroom sink, because he doesn’t want to imply that her skills are not worth compensation.

He’s a giant fucking nerd and he’s _hers_ and her family can stuff it.

Her mother came around a while back, mostly, but she’s fully on board with Dale as a son-in-law as soon as she sees the ring and the smile on Sofia’s face. Mario still looks flummoxed, but offers Sofie congratulations and awkwardly shakes Dale’s hand. Her father just watches the excitement from his chair in the living room, waiting until it all dies down before he stands and approaches Sofia, folding her into a hug. He tells her he loves her, nods solemnly to Dale, then goes to the liquor cabinet.

“Coulda been worse,” Dale says, with a grin and a wink, and he’s not wrong but she wishes the bar wasn’t so fucking low. And Dale can tell she’s conflicted about it, so he takes her hand and raises it up, kisses her knuckles and tweaks the ring a little, and she feels warm all over because… because Dale is _good_ and treats her _right_ and if her father is too much of an asshole to see that, too stubborn to want to see that his daughter is actually happy marrying outside of the neighborhood, then fine.

She has Dale - who weeps, unashamed, through the entire ceremony - and a raucous wedding reception, a good job and a nice house with some deer in the backyard, she has someone to keep her temper in check, someone who brings little gifts home because he was thinking about her and couldn’t resist.

Sofia loves Dale and Dale loves Sofia.

And everything is perfect. Until it’s not.

The last time Sofia sees Dale is before work on a Tuesday morning.

She doesn't know it's the last time, of course, so the details aren't quite as clear as she would like them to be. How was she supposed to know he wouldn't come home that night?

She remembers he looked tired. She remembers that he was wearing the long-sleeved white buttondown with the ink stain on the cuff, because she had forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning the day before, but he said it wasn't a problem and rolled up his sleeves before he left the house. She remembers he almost made it out the door before he walked back inside and kissed her. It was a perfectly normal kiss, quick but purposeful, and he had trailed a finger across her cheek as he stepped back.

"I might be late tonight," he had said, wincing a little. "Work's... rough."

In the immediate aftermath, she had hated him for using work as an excuse for his infidelity.

Later, she will hate herself a little for hating him while he was dying.

**Author's Note:**

> (The new Dropout newsletter had said "Sofia and Dale have a date" in TUC2ep2 and I fully did not read the rest of the email, I just came here and posted this fic I wrote for two friends a week ago.)


End file.
